10 Things about your Blog that Drive Me Crazy

We click on a link to a new (or sometimes familiar) blog with high expectations.

Perhaps you’ve heard great things about the post. Perhaps the title seems interesting. Perhaps there is buzz regarding the author. Whatever the case may be – something brought you to their site.

You are excited, and looking forward to checking out their content.

And then the page loads… and you want to pull your hair out.

We each have different pet peeves when it comes to blogs. Something about mine undoubtedly drives someone crazy. It happens. I, for one, would like to know what those things are.

This post highlights 10 things that just might be driving me crazy about yours.

You Autoplay Background Music

While I appreciate your love for Cee Lo Green, I do not need to hear the uncensored version of “F— You” as soon as I visit your blog page. Especially if I happen to be visiting your blog from work.

The same applies to just about every. song. imaginable.

I don’t mind if you have a playlist we can choose to click on, but autoplay is different. Instead of singing along, I find myself searching frantically for the browser tab that is the guilty culprit and exiting your page quicker than you can say “F— You.”

You use Newsletter Subscription Pop-ups

Let’s think about the days before we had browser pop-up blockers for a moment. Remember how much we despised the pop-up windows that would open each time we visited a website?

So why do bloggers feel the need to use built-in Newsletter Subscription pop-up windows? I understand that many of your readers don’t see them because they check your blog through an RSS feed, but what if they click-through via twitter? Facebook? What if they – god forbid – type your website address directly into the browser? What if I they are a new reader?

The last thing I want to do is click-through to a blog and be greeted by a pop-up that I have to “x” out of. That is not what I came to see. Your content is what I came to see.

You use the Dreaded CAPTCHA

This is something that ends up on just about every commenting pet-peeve list imaginable. No one likes spam, I know that. I never liked the canned kind, and I certainly don’t like the comment kind. Half the time I can’t figure out what the word is and I have 20/20 vision!

There are ways around having to use CAPTCHA word verification.

If you use Blogger or tumblr as your blogging platform, consider using an outside commenting system with Akismet capabilities. The use of Akismet will dramatically cut down on your SPAM.

If you use WordPress, install Akismet and something like Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (G.A.S.P.). With G.A.S.P. all a reader has to do is click a button that indicates they are not SPAM. Same effect as a CAPTCHA, with no crazy word verification needed.

You don’t want me to share your content

If you don’t have any share buttons visible on a post you must not want me to share it. Right? Otherwise, that would imply that you want me to do all of the work.

Instead, because I absolutely loved that post you did about Tom Ford, I:

But you must not like it when people share your content. That’s cool. Next time I might not.

You don’t use URL Shorteners/set-up Tweets

Some people are ahead of the game and DO have social media sharing buttons installed on their blogs. Great. I love them already.

I’ll love them even more if they take a few minutes to set-up their sharing buttons to be more efficient. Most of these share buttons include options to personalize the tweets/messages that result from using them. Check if your chosen share method does, and if you are able:

Add a URL shortener (I use bit.ly). This gives the person sharing your post room to SAY something about it.

Add your twitter handle so that it is automatically included if someone tweets your post.

Add the title of your post, so your reader doesn’t have to.

I understand not everyone is able to do these things, but many do have the capability and simply don’t.

You are a Twitter-less Blogger

Not everyone is big on social media, I get that. But I honestly don’t understand why some bloggers don’t at least use twitter to promote their blog posts. In my opinion, it is the one platform everyone should utilize. It’s a great way to build your network and promote others in the fashion blogosphere.

Image via Crazy Town

Every week when I post the latest Link Love roundup I include some tweets about who is featured. Every week I run into a blogger or two that seemingly has no twitter account. Occasionally they do have one, but there is no easy way to find it on their site.

So here I am, trying to share some Link Love, and I am limited in that I can’t tweet about them effectively. Who does that hurt? The blogger, really.

Please, please consider using twitter if you aren’t already.

If you do use twitter, please make sure that your twitter handle is easy to find on your blog homepage.

Your Comment Link is in a strange Location

I confess that sometimes when I read a magazine, I actually start at the back and work my way forwards. That being said, I have never started reading at the bottom of a blog post and worked my way up. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think most posts would make sense like that.

Since we read from top to bottom, doesn’t it make the most sense to include your “Comment” link at the bottom of a post? Why make your reader scroll all the way to the top again in order to comment? Don’t you want to make the process as easy as possible?

Your blog hurts my eyes

The design of your blog is key and simple is the way to go:

A white background with dark text is alwaysthe easiest to read.

If you must have a black background, make sure the font you chose is large and easy to read.

Keep your sidebars as uncluttered and organized as possible.

Keep your header at a reasonable size.

Don’t use a header that takes up half of the page. I would say 1/4 to a 1/3 is a good size.

You have never heard of spell-check

However, when it comes to your BLOG, you need to make sure that you spell-check your content. I don’t care how pretty your images may be, if every other word in your post is spelled wrong I am not going to be visiting again.

Image via The Oatmeal

Grammar is also key, people. Just because you try to keep your blog conversational, that doesn’t mean that your grammar should be all over the place.

Your site loads slower than molasses in January

The majority of fashion blogs are highly visual which can mean heavy load times for a visitor. Most people – especially new visitors – aren’t going to stick around for 15 seconds as your site loads.

Make sure that you make the load time as fast as possible. Here are a few quick things to consider:

Make sure your images load quickly. Consider reducing their size if they don’t.

I definitely hate the auto-play music in the background. Sometimes I am playing my own music, or the volume is still turned up on my PC. Then I have to frantically search and scroll through the page to find the place to stop the music, just to give up moments later and hit the “Mute” button on my keyboard. And what’s with people who don’t share content?! I thought blogging was all about sharing. This is especially true for some of my fellow Tattoo Artists here in London. They protect their posts as if they were gold dust.

This is great!…And its so true…specially the auto-play music!I go bananas!
Thank you so much for this post!…I really needed these tips.
Could you perhaps pass by my horrible newbie blogg and tell me how i can upgrade it?..

Hi
I love your post, it all makes a lot of sense. As I am new to blogger, I am slowly learning how to create a usable, readable blog. One that hopefully entices my readers to come back again and again. As I don’t have a twitter account, I’m now on my way to create one.
Thank you for all your helpful advice
Tanya

hey friend,
i like the way you sarcastically conveyed the message you want to convey.
can you just take a look on my blog http://www.raviirana.blogspot.com
and suggest some thing to make my blog more visible and followed?

Awesome article! I’m new to this so I will work on some of the etiquette that I was not aware of. I need to hone my skills a lot more before I am comfortable promoting myself but I get your point. Thanks for the tips.

I would personally like to hunt down and shake the person who invented the autoplay function for websites. Did they not know what hell they were to unleash on the world? It has always been, and will always be, an intrusive, tacky as hell feature. Why not just put in 8 bit rotating gifs and be done with it?

I also feel you with regards to spelling errors. I know it’s elitist and snobby, but I find it so hard to take someone seriously when they blog in txt spk. There is a whole keyboard RIGHT THERE.

Contributing to your list, I would add that multiple youtube screens also annoy me. If I want to watch video clips I know where to find them. If I visit your blog it is to read your writing or see photos or video clips you have made. If I want to watch Madona or anyone else performing I know how to find them. If you have nothing to write just don’t. Wasting spectrum resources with video clips makes no sense!

I agree with most of your remarks. Particularly with what concerns Captcha (I wish they all disappeared by some magic!), background music, cluttered sites, comment links, spelling, small print on black background, slow page loading. I would not agree on being on twitter because I have no desire or reason for being on social media. My experience from FB is really poor and tasteless. I don’t need thousands of virtual friends I will never meet or even talk to. I gained from being part of the FB community, so I see no reason for been any part of any other of these. I am not familiar with the remaining parts of your post and I cannot comment on these.

Love this post! In the beginning I didn’t realize my blogger had NO way for people to contact me. WTH?!?! So I’ve been learning ways to tweak things and make myself social media friendly and ways to find me on pinterest, IG and twitter. Still haven’t made a FB fan page as I feel like it’s one more thing I need to keep up with.

One of your points, the header, is good advice. So i wonder why you dont follow your own advice and have a header 50% of the page…
Im 100% zoom, on a standard 19″ laptop screen, at 16:9 ratio, at 1366×768 resolution. couldnt be more standard and i see 50% of my screen taken up my your banner, heading, and menu that makes up the header…

I designed and programmed my blog from scratch and would love your advice and constructive criticism 🙂

I’m a blog and social reader. Just thinking about starting my own blog.

As a reader my pet peeves are very close to what you have posted here as well as some social media > blog tips to reach readers like myself.

– Stop posting comments from a blog on twitter without a link!!! I want to read more and without a link I’m lost or annoyed that the blogger expects me to look for his/her blog.
– I’m with others on advertisements, but another is a misleading link. If your link says “Book on Blogging” please be sure it goes somewhere I can get a book on blogging. Very frustrating when I end up somewhere else and have to go on quest to find said book.
– I’m with Anne on the inspirational photos as well. I want content, if I wanted photos I’d go to pinterest! If you feel the need to post photos fine but give us content with the photos.

Thanks for the great tips. Some of them should be pretty self evident…like the “don’t force your musical tastes on your reader” one, but of many of them I was totally ignorant. No shock there! I am such a noob! I feel like the bird on the far left in your twitter comment cartoon. Chirp! Chirp!. Thanks again.

Actually just decided to “take the plunge” and finally start the blog I’ve always though I’ve had within me. I can’t begin to thank you enough for your tips. I do however want to do this right, and with that said, while searching for “tips for new bloggers”, I ran across your blog. Love the style. Love the simplicity. And enjoyed reading the way you communicate your thoughts. I’ll hope to check back in later (with a link!) and a little more about what/who I am, although I must admit – you will probably find your “average American males” blog rather boring! I’m either stereotyping my self (or YOU), which is typically ‘so not me’, but I digress…

Thank you so much for mentioning that comment links should be at the bottom of a post! I’ve found myself opening in the comment link in a new window on some of my favorite blogs just so I don’t have to scroll up after I’ve finished reading their post! (notice “their” not “they’re” or “there”, I loved that graphic)

I agree with all of your assessments. I have never even thought about putting the comment button on the bottom instead of the top. I also love a clean blog. I recently redid mine because it was bothering even me.

I would also like to add that when a blogger has a video on a post, it plays immediately instead of allowing the reader to push play. Usually I have about 10 tabs open at one time, and it’s a pain to have to click through all of them to have to find which blog is playing the video.

– I understand your blog (not “you” specifically!) is about making you money; so I understand the need to have advertisements on your blog, but nothing turns me off more than visiting a blog that has an advertisement above the header. Can we please keep ads confined to the side bars? An ad above your header just ruins the whole point of having a pretty header.

– while we are on the subject of advertising – if your post is sponsored, I’d rather you tell me at the start of the post, rather than at the end.

– bloggers who don’t bother attributing images correctly. Personally, 99% of the images in my blog are my own; I understand that there is a need for some blogs to use images from other sites, but can we please respect the copyright owners rights?

Another AWESOME blog!
I agree with you that auto-plays are the worst.
Like,it’s in the middle of the night and I forget to mute/plug the headphones in and suddenly really loud music comes blaring out of the speakers..It’s so annoying.
So is spelling mistakes.And PeOpLe WhO TyPe LiKe ThIs.
Anyway,very informative and interesting post!

I found your post to be highly informative.you’ve helped me improve my blogging styles,
I was a bit peeved when I couldn’t read the image under “You have never heard of spell-check”
I know you might have reduced the size to get a faster load rate but it still is annoying, not being able to read the image right away.

Thanks for sharing. It’s very informative, specially for new bloggers like me. I dont know how to share. Can you please tell where I have to go to add the sharing gadget on my page? Would appreciate that.

I’m trying to figure our how to add those fancy buttons you have at the top so I can link my twitter and goodreads and whatnot to my blog. I’m still a baby blogger but this definitely helped me figure out what I can be doing better.

A white background with dark text is always the easiest to read.
Sorry to pull you up on this, but that is simply not the case. The majority of migraine sufferers and visually impaired people I know, including myself, hate black-on-solid-white layouts for the headaches – real headaches – that they cause. So please, think of your readers with disabilities. Off-white is much easier. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read all of your post as I’m actually getting a headache right now from the amount of whitespace. Just my $0.02 – I’d love to read your blog, your content looks interesting, but ow, your layout hurts.

Thanks for your comment! I understand what you are saying regarding black on white and have actually been told that before. I suffer the same ailment when I see white (or any other color) on black, so I do understand what you mean. I’ll look into editing my post to reflect that information, thanks!

It is relatively easy to turn white background into black (well, dark blue) and print into white, by marking the entire page. I mark dark pages with very small white (or light-colored) print and the print becomes clearly visible.

Autoplay music is a nightmare, especially when it restarts on the next page. Spelling and grammar mistakes get me too, but most of the time I correct it in my head (sometimes without even realizing it). I know I’m a weirdo, but I can’t help it.

This is a great post, thanks for sharing. The auto-play music does my head in, I will just leave a blog that has it on. Twitter is fantastic, I don’t say too much on it, just share my new post that are up on the blog. In the past (& prob still every so often) I spell the simplest words wrong, even after spell checking, so check & check again.

I very much admired this post. Nice work although my blog does not have much of the issues to deal with. I’m a new blogger as well. I am really enjoying this stuff! And this is the one thing about your website that makes me love it! It’s very usefull !!! Thanks for this again !

Thank you for you listing out your major pet peeves. It definitely points out very important information we all should take into account when designing our blogs.

There is one thing that I will take from your post, and that is to create a twitter account to promote my blog. Until now I haven’t really found the need to use twitter. You should be able to see my twitter account soon on my blog.

I have a question for you. How do you feel about advertising on blog? Can be it overwhelming, or do you ever feel like you are betraying your readers by having them read your blog and look at all that advertising?

I have enjoyed blogging. Today the interface changed. I cannot get onto my blog to post. I am getting dozens of sci-fi weirdo’s wanting to add me to their circle….. added blogs suggested are porn. I am overwelmed by the amount of **WORDS** ON dashboard.
There is no place to add a new post.
I AM SO DISCOURAGED.

Thank you for the great tips! I enjoyed visiting your site for some ideas as I am new to blogging and was doing a little research. The Top Ten list is a great listing of how I can improve and/or not p-ss people off.
Thanks.

I am a beginning blogger, and after reading your post, I am largely confused. There are a lot things you mentioned that I’ve never heard of. I am going to have to give this serious consideration.

I write Torggil’s World on Blogger, and I don’t have a twitter account, probably because I don’t see then need for it. I do post a link from my face book account to my most recent post, but lets just say I am cautious with social media. Privacy is an issue, but then I do still want people to read what I write so maybe I’ll have to twitter.

OMG.. the music and the capatchas. I’m so with you.
This is great advice. Some good reminders for even experienced bloggers. I hadn’t gotten to the point of adding twitter to my blogs. Now that will be something to add to my to do list.
Thanks!

Useful post – I’ve always found Feedburner to be the best tool to integrate the blog with Twitter. Automates your blog posts, however, it can be important not to completely ostricise your Twitter following by just tweeting blog / news updates.

Very useful post and specially like to read something that is useful and funny at the same time. Twitter is a really good idea, I have linked my twitter account to my YouTube and blogger account so whenever I upload a video it gets automatically updated. And I also linked my FB and linkedin account so whenever twitter is updated my both status are updated. It’s great, like somebody else doing the work for you. And although i don’t have many twitter followers I do have plenty of friends in FB and contacts in linkedin.

Now, about the grammar… What to do when you are writing in a language that is not your native language? I love writing in English but is not my mother toungue which you could proably already tell by reading this comment. Sometimes my native english speaking friends makes me aware of my mistakes and sometimes they are huge. A bit embarrassing. What to do then?. Thanks!

All of us use the web for researching our questions. Your content here answered my question very well and I thank you for that. I hope that other people will find your site to be the great resource that it is.

I have been thinking about creating a Twitter account but I haven’t seen the need for it…yet. With Facebook and Google+, I think those two are enough but maybe in the future I’ll set up an account. Is Twitter really that helpful for a blogger?

Wonderful post! I installed those plugins you referenced in your last point. That was very handy, thank you!

I hate when you are reading a blog on a sub-blogging platform (ie yourblog.blogspot.com) and when you want to leave a comment, the only options are to leave a comment with some sort of platform attached to it. I either want to leave a comment that links back to my self-hosted blog or I want to leave my name and email. I don’t want to have to sign into my Google or Blogger account or any other account just to leave a comment. I’m not likely to leave a comment as “anonymous.”

Loved loved loved this now going back to my blog to undo all the things you said drive you mad ha ha !!
I have just started a blog, was going to be an experimant to see if i could get more work … but think it may simply turn into some sort of mad catlady ramblings…

It has been a few years since I had a blog, but after some debating with myself, I finally decided to start up again. It was insightful to read what other people DON’T want to see… or hear. I loved the section on misspelled words. I understand it happens from time to time, but some things we should have learned in first grade… or second… or tenth. This is the first post of yours that I have read, but I enjoyed it, and will be poking around for some more.

One of your peeves is something that I would like to learn how to correct. I do not know how to set up the sharing tools to do the things that you have mentioned. Could you please tell me where I should look to edit these things?

I will start this with, “OMG, I don’t have twitter.” You are hilarious. I have enjoyed reading your, ” 10 things about your Blog that Drive me Crazy.” I will defiantly try to clean up my act and add Twitter. Thanks for your honesty. Pam

Caphcas also drive me bonkers, they make programs to defeat those capchas so really all your doing is making your real users angry. Autoplay of music also drives me nuts, I dont have the same taste in music as you so dont make me listen to yours. This is a great list and I agree with most of it here, however we all know that we have done each of these at one time or another.

I very much admired this post. Nice work although my blog does not have much of the issues to deal with. I’m a new blogger as well. I am really enjoying the hell out of this stuff! And this is the one thing about your website that makes me love it! Beautiful, funny advisable Post!

I’m brand new to blogging…. and tweeting. Actually I don’t really tweet, but I have a Twitter ID.
I don’t really know what to do on a blog either. I babble a lot, I’m good at that. I have a Babble Blog.

I just wanted to say that I thank you so much for putting this list up. It was extremely helpful. I learned a lot in the short time it took to read it. (Thank you for that)

I also really like the name of your blog. It’s lovely …. and intriguing. 🙂

I am pressing your follow button, but I must admit, I don’t really know what happens after that so if there’s more I need to do…. regardless, I will visit your blog again. I have bookmarked your site. (I know how to do that).

OMG.. the music and the capatchas. I’m so with you.
This is great advice. Some good reminders for even experienced bloggers. I hadn’t gotten to the point of adding twitter to my blogs. Now that will be something to add to my to do list.
Thanks!

Ahh, rats. I almost made it to the point of not having anything on this list be a problem for my blog…but then you hit upon the header. My header is huge, and denies all attempts at making it smaller. Maybe I can go in paint and make it smaller, but the image resolution will also degrade. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, thanks for this wonderful list! I will definitely keep these things in mind while working on my blog. This article goes on my favorites list to come check out later. Maybe by then I won’t have ANY of the problems on this list. 😉

I really enjoyed that someone made a list of annoying things. I was guilty of one, not putting my twitter link on there 😛
I totally agree with all of these but i would have to say that “your blog hurts my eyes” is the one I agree most with. and coming in close second is “you have need heard of spell check”.
hope I don’t have anything that annoys people on my blogs.

Thanks for the clearly presented tips. I’ll refer to them (and your blog) when I give a presentation to colleagues who don’t yet have blogs but are keen to start. I still have lots to learn, and don’t pretend to be an expert so it’s good to refer to a blog that shows what can be achieved.

Re Twitter: after about 2 months of having the button on the sidebar and tweeting my own posts and interesting links (with brief comment) I’d gained the grand total of 5 followers. I felt like a hasbeen. I’ve taken the button away now and haven’t checked in since then. Do you have any thoughts about if I should have left it there longer, or was it never going to be a happening thing for my style of blog? (Mostly serious topics to do with improving workplace communication, bullying and education)

I must say I found some insightful information on this post. I came across this one on my Blogger Buzz. One of my apprehensions about using Twitter was that it sometimes seems too much but I am realizing that it’s one more way to promote my blog and increase traffic.

Also I see you suggested using bit.ly for shortening URLs, what do you think of tinyurl.com?

I like that you broke down the 10 things and also provided examples. Thanks.

You called me on the Twitter account. I have resisted and resisted even more the urge to get a twitter account. Thought that FaceBook was all the social media that I needed… Well you have convinced me and given me a new way to look at the use of Social Media for personal promotion.

Great information! Thanks! What about bilingual blogs? I am native Hungarian so I blog in Hungarian but I enjoy writing some English words as wel. I’m a bit unsure whether it is the way to go, or should I just stick with one language?

In my opinion (and I’m not an experienced blogger so take it or leave it), it would be better to have a blog in all English, and a different blog in all Hungarian, not two languages in the same blog. (Maybe that’s what you were doing anyways and I misunderstood. If so, ignore this haha.)

Without a doubt for me the most nagging ones in your list are the Autoplay background music and the lack of proper spell checking. Can’t stand going to a blog and getting scared to death because the blogger has some annoying music blaring at me. On the note of not being able to share content easily I have to agree that this can in fact be a positive thing in many cases just depends on what you’re blogging about.

If I may comment about not sharing the content. I just recently deleted my blog on Tumblr exactly because of the reason that anything I would post was available for rebloging to everyone. Eventually, when a person who used to have a blog about sex including different porn and erotic stuff on it reblogged one of my innocent pictures from a club that I posted-I was very determined to find a blog that will NOT have this feature. So I dont know about you, but I definitely see the fact of not being able to easily share your content-positive, unless you are able to allow the share personally before it ends up in some other place than your own blog.

Great tips and insight. With regard to this: You don’t want me to share your content, I must say I usually stop at “Copy the link to your blog”, and give up in frustration. Life’s too short. I have enough to do on my own blog without fixing other blogger’s problems.

Fabulous..
Your site in itself is a coaching class for wannabe Bloggers. You didn’t even need to take the pain to write it all over again. I found your Blog an exquisite example of intelligent and sensitive presentation.

Being a Blogger myself for some time now, what i would suggest to anyone out there is just three good words while Blogging- KEEP IT SIMPLE!!

To me, this post made blogging scariER! I’m new at this and so I don’t know half of what you’re talking about. URL shorteners, options to reblog… have no idea how do to those things!
It made me realize I have a lot to learn and until then I’m afraid my posts will be pissing someone off! lol

Great article! I am doing much wrong and other than changing the black background, probably can’t fix anything else. Unfortunately, my computer logged me out of gmail & I can’t seem to come up with the correct combination of user ID and password, so I can’t get in. I can’t change it by resetting the password because I broke my phone 2 days ago & can’t seem to set up gmail on the new phone. Some day. . . .it’s times like this that I wished I had children!

I found this blog very helpful! I’m a new blogger (started two days ago) and I want to make this attempt at blogging fun AND efficient. Even though I just created mine, I’m already searching for ways to make it better so my future readers will fall in love. We all blog to share our ideas, talents, tips, etc., right? So it’s a no-brainer that we want our blogs to be reader-friendly; if no one can read our blog (or WANT to because of the flaws) then we are basically just blogging for the hell of it, much like when a person talks to his/herself.
I have a facebook and a google+ account, but I’ve been hesistant to make a twitter because I’m not fully sure what the point of it is or what makes it a “must have” compared to the other social networks. After reading this, however, I have been convinced to at least go sign up and give it a try. After all, what’s the harm? If it promotes my blogs and what not, than awesome! If not, well, at least I can say I tried and it’s not like I’m obligated to keep the account.
So, thank you again!

Inspired by your Top 10 list, I have created my own on Top 10 list on my Tumblr Blog. It includes tips on how not to get your entire craft tutorial ripped off and uncredited on Tumblr, and another example: Don’t write one or two sentence posts like, “Just checking in today. Planning a huge surprise for tomorrow!” I’d rather you just didn’t post and I’ll check in when you have more content. I follow 100s of crafts blogs and have definite opinions. http://truebluemeandyou.tumblr.com/post/10953909498/reblogging-my-top-10-list-but-with-a-unwanted

Thanks for this! I’m new to blogging and still trying to sort it all out. I’ve avoided Twitter because I’m a complete idiot when it comes to how to use it. This is interesting as I’m usually the one explaining social media to others, but for some reason I just don’t get the whole Twitter thing. I need a Twitter for Dummies guide.

This was great! Thank you so much for writing this. I just started my first blog and, luckily, I already have some of this down, but there were pieces I didn’t know about. Like Twitter. I’ve been avoiding it for a while, but I guess now, since I want my blog to succeed, I better open an account. Thanks again!

So true! LOL… Anytime I hear autoplay music, I just instantly close out. And yeah the pop up optins are really annoying especially when they pop up more than once.. Like, really? I already said I didn’t want to opt in and I might actually want to read your blog before opting in anyway…

Thanks for this, great tips – some more common sense than others. And I found the sharing stuff really interesting and think I’ll do that for my site. I’m interested in this post as I’m not particularly technically savvy nor stylish. For me, content trumps all. Thus, the spelling stuff really resonates with me.

Having said that, now that I check out more sites, I am definitely developing a taste for simplicity in design and also value the time that it takes to load. I suspect that this may be a problem with my site as well. If you have a moment, I’d be really grateful if you could critique my site for me: http://shannon-laviefrancaise.blogspot.com/

Basically, my questions:

*Is the background really naff?
*Any tips for improvement with design?
*Does the background cause problems with the time it takes to load?

Hey, I loved reading your blog, the way you put forward your ideas is informative and really funny, just thought I’d tell you 🙂

I was also wondering if you have any tips for my blog because me and two other friends have recently started it (recently being not so recently but as in its been running for a couple of months) and I am still not quite sure if everything on my blog looks right. If you could give me a few tips on how to improve it I would be really great full! Thanks!

Thank you for your tips! I’m still in learning mode with my blog and trying to make it better. I have so many topics I like to write about that I don’t focus on just one, like dogs, fishing, politics etc. I hope I can learn how to get more subscribers to my blog. I have none yet! Thanks again for your help!

I enjoyed reading your blog, and especially Loved the “Misspelled words” chart. =) That’s one of my peeves, as well as the auto-play music. I’m not much of blogger and still have yet to publish anything actually. However, it does hold my curiosity and one day I will find the time for it. For now I simply enjoy looking randomly at blogs I come across. Thank you for the tips and the enjoyed reading =)

As a blogger “toddler”, I so appreciate these tips on what NOT to do. So much valuable information that I hope to incorporate with my blog. I especially want to look into the feature where my guests don’t have to type those weird words – I know that’s hindering comments. Of course, they all want to tell me how insightful my writing is!!
Thanks so much for your help and I’ll be checking your blog often (knowing I won’t be greeted by annoying music).

I have just been reading this post, and as a new blogger it made me think more about my own site. If there is something about the site that anyone here does not like (within reason, comments on the fact that you think the text size should be 14.25 instead of 14 are just gonna get ignored frankly – for obvious reasons), please let me know.

I have already found one thing that I don’t like, and if anyone can tell me how to disable it I would be thankful. When you click on the email share button at the bottom of a post it brings up a new screen. This screen has a damn CAPTCHA type text box you have to fill in. Those things annoy the hell out of me, and after reading this I know I am not the only one. So if anyone knows how to switch that off on blogger (the CAPTCHA type text thing and not the email button), please let me know.

Great tips! My weakness is grammar for sure but my spelling has improved ten fold!

I would like to know how you respond to all your comments? Do you comment back on your blog post? or Email everyone your response? What is the proper protocol?

One thing that annoys both my husband and I is flashing anything. I have left sites because of this as well as pop ups or ads I can not get rid of. Music gets me too! I don’t like sites that play music or have talking ads.

Hi! Loved the post. I definitely need help! I’m new to blogging and know nothing. I am using blogger, so whatever they give me is what I use. Apparently, I use the dreaded CAPTCHA because a friend of mine she she posted on my blog but I never saw it. I don’t think she did that step, I think she got out before she saw that she needed to do it. I don’t know if I could get rid of it if I tried.

I just want to thank everyone for all of your lovely comments – I am so glad that this post has been useful to so many of you! I will be responding individually to any questions and inquiries that people have posted so stay tuned if you are waiting for a response!

Thanks for this blog post! It’s great to hear what annoys others so you can fix any problem areas. I write the allaboutindiefilmmaking@blogspot.com blog and I realized I didn’t have the share buttons activated – yikes! All fixed now. Thanks for the reminder.

Grrrr – I just typed I big ol’ comment of support and praise and then just before submitting I was clicking the boxes I thought I had to at the bottom there – got curious about the subscription thingy – clicked it – realised I didn’t want it was for – came back – – – my whole comment had disappeared!!!!!!!

Ohhhhhh!!! 🙁 🙁 🙁

It so sucks when you have created something, put in that time, and then BAM it’s gone in a heartbeat.

Great list of tips for better blogging. Reminded me that I’ve been wanting to add the Twitter button to my blog, so I’d better get to it, and make my “handle” clearly visible, too. Personally, I don’t mind the CAPTCHA process, but it’s interesting to see that there’s an easier and faster way to do that…I’ll see if Google Blogger offers that as a quickie plug-in, thanks. You kindly ask what we all hate about blogs (and websites): black backgrounds. First of all, it’s so depressing that I close the window immediately without even looking at the content. Secondly, it’s very VERY hard to read, even for someone like me with a very minor correction…go figure for those with thicker glasses! And what about my blog? *I* think my blog on Milan, Italy is engaging, fun and informative (of course), and when I started the blog about a year ago I did try to find similar blogs out there, but without luck (and then life got VERY crazy), so thanks for the reminder. I’ll try, again. In the meantime, at least I’m listed on the great blog for those interested in blogs in English on Italy (go to Sheila’s http://italytutto.com/). Even Sheila’s favorite blogs tend to be about Tuscany (the region with Florence), Lazio (the region with Rome) and the Veneto (the region with, uhhhh, Venice). Sigh–fascinating and beautiful Milan hasn’t made it past the fashion and design bubble, yet, in people’s imaginations, and that’s just what I’m trying to do. Keep your fingers crossed for me, thanks!

I agree on all of the above! Except, I downloaded sexybookmarks and I’m having a problem adding them to my blog. Ugh.
There’s so many new gadgets, and I’m not sure how to use them….so I’m probably guilty of not having a “share” button. Take pity on us folks; we probably want one and are too dumb to figure it out right now.
(Emphasis on the words: right now) Hopefully some expert blogger will condescend to help one of us (me me!) and get us on the right path!
I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far, and have subscribed…I’ll be back to see older posts when the hour is such that I can actually keep my eyes open… goodnight.

Thank you for these great tips. I’ve been focusing on enhancing my blog. I registered with akismet and they sent me instructions for adding the “plugin” to WordPress; however, I use Blogger.
1. Do you know how to add it to Blogger?

Also, my application for AdSense was denied for the following reasons:

Difficult site navigation: During our review of your website, we found
your site difficult to navigate. Potential navigation issues include:
redirects, pages behind a login or restricted access, broken links,
excessive pop-ups, dialers, and pages under construction or not yet
launched.
2. Huh?

One of my big pet peeves is lack of a chronological index for blog posts. I see that you have a “search” function, and a “your favorite reads” list and even the ability to search by category; but other than that, there’s no easy way to look for posts from the past. I always look for a nice, neat sidebar index, with posts arranged by year and month, starting with the most recent. I find this immensely useful in looking up my own old posts, and it’s invaluable for posts from other bloggers as well. Please don’t make me click through “Previous Post” repeatedly to see what you’ve written before!

Another pet peeve, and one which you are not guilty of: non-descriptive post titles. I’ve seen too many authors who try to be cool by numbering their posts, or simply giving them no title at all, or using the same title over and over. This makes it almost impossible to look for those things that have been written in the past! If what you’ve written isn’t important enough to title and index in a way that makes it easy to locate later, why bother to post it to a blog at all? Why not just post it to an ephemeral service like Facebook or Twitter?

Jessica – sorry, this was directed at Beautifully Invisible, in response to “Is there anything about Beautifully Invisible that drives you crazy?” And this is my third comment, so I was writing as though it were one long rambling comment.

Actually, I do have an archive on my site. In two places. One is in my sidebar (a calendar) and the other is a tab in the menu. The tabbed archive is a chronological calendar of my blog posts that is displayed by month. Because this is mainly a fashion blog, and because I am highly visual, I chose a visual calendar that displays the post image and title. Again, it’s a matter of preference – I never use the sidebar indexes on a blog and prefer that they are on a separate tab. I do appreciate your candor, though, and might look into something like SmartArchives in the future which is a text-based archive instead.

As for the your second pet peeve – I agree 100%! I don’t mind catchy titles, as long as some sort of indication of topic is also given!

I totally agree with this. Though I have to admit, even though I do use the spell check, I am guilty of missing some mistakes sometimes.
I also hate CAPTCHA. I don’t have any automated SPAM-control on my comment system at all, mostly because I’m not to the point of getting enough comments that I need it. I’ve had my blog going for about a year and have a total of 29 comments. I just delete the SPAM myself.
Also, the comic you used (Ten Words You need To Stop Misspelling) is credited to The Oatmeal. Just thought you’d like to know! 🙂
Internet Hugs!
-Li

Hi there, thanks so much for reading! Yes, spell-check definitely isn’t fool-proof, but it helps 🙂 We all make mistakes, but some people just don’t care to correct them and that is what bothers me. A typo here and there is no big deal – but a page full of them drives me bananas!

The CAPTCHA issue really does depend on the number of comments received. If, as you said, the number of comments a blog is receiving is small, there really is no need for a CAPTCHA since moderation can be handled manually. Once the quantity increases, that is where it makes sense to look for other options, if they are available!

Also, thanks for the info. re: the comic. Another commenter also mentioned the same thing so I updated my post. I appreciate it!

Great post. I especially love the sharing one. I think that allowing people to share links to your post are a great way to widen your audience, which I guess would also be a reason some might not want to.

I began a blog in mid-August to keep my family and friends updated on a motorcycle camping trip I was taking from Louisiana to Washington state. It took me almost 2 weeks just to get the blog set up in a semi-attractive manner, then another week fine-tuning it with input I received from readers (yes, my family :)).

The trip ended this week and I’ve somehow gathered readers from around the world. Not many, mind you, but places that I have no link to. I’m assuming a friends-of-friends snowball effect. I was feeling pretty good about this but, after reading this, I realize there was a lot I could have done better.

I was originally going to stop the blog at the end of the trip. I was posting/scheduling daily blogs and this was fairly easy because there was always some crazy, silly, or scary happening to write about but, now the we are back home, I can cut back to bi-weekly or less.

Thanks for writing such good tips for newbies, it took me a lot of time to make my first post phew..! I like style of your blog and of fulltime ford. One thing I wondering if you could tell how could I add the social media follow bar with facebook, twitter etc, which located below feed subscribe button. it seems very cool! + also the ‘Shairing is sexy’ bar.
appreciate your help
Ali

Thank you for all the tips above. I am new to the world of blogging and this has been a very helpful post. I am interested in knowing how one would go about following someone? I notice that yours is clearly located on the top right hand corner, with a follow me button. However there is a blog I’m interested in following which I can not find such a link.

Thanks for the tips!
I have been blogging for a while but I don’t seem to get very many comments, some people say comments aren’t necessary and others say comments are very important, that if I don’t get comments then I am doing something wrong. What is your opinion?

And in response to the folks who have an issue with “Read more…” buttons: This is sometimes a defense used by people who have been victimized by “scraper blogs” – blogs that steal and repost your content without attribution. I’ve had that happen at least twice; the only way you can check it is to Google unique chunks of text from your posts and see where else they turn up. Like the popularity of Tumblr and the use of unattributed images, this is a symptom, I think, of the “everything is free and everything is public domain” attitude that has grown out of widespread and accepted online piracy of music and movies.

I’ve had blogs scrape my content as well, so I know what you mean and understand your pain. I don’t mind blogs that use “Read More” buttons and have done it myself, though I tend to add that after a post has been live a few days.

One thing to keep in mind is that most scrapers use RSS feeds to farm content, so it doesn’t matter if a blog post is set to “read more” if the blog’s RSS feed is published in its entirety. If so they can still scrape that content regardless of the “Read More” button!

I am new to the blog world-so this was some insightful and useful information. I only have one post down and I will be sure to take all of your suggestions into consideration. Thank you for sharing and helping us “newlyweds” to blogging!

I can’t say I agree with everything on your list. CAPTCHA is an unfortunate fact of life for some of us, as is comment moderation – and I do not trust third party services for handling comments. Sharing posts is easy enough even if the blogger hasn’t provided buttons for your convenience – I have buttons on my toolbar that let me do it, but, seriously, I don’t mind if I have to link the whole URL. URL shorteners are cute, but unneccessary. As is Twitter. My blog is picked up by Google; I also advertise new posts on Facebook. Why the heck should I jump on the Twitter bandwagon?

Thank you for your comment, Harold, I appreciate it! While I certainly understand that some people do feel that CAPTCHA’s are necessary, the point of this post was just to share that there are some other options out there. Some people really do get so few spam comments that a CAPTCHA is not needed, while others (those of us who aren’t on blogger) have options like Akismet and GASP that effectively handle the problem.

As for the topic of sharing posts, as everything else, it is a personal decision, but I want to make it as easy as possible for someone to share my content if they desire to do so. That means making the process simple by providing sharing bars. URL shorteners are not meant to be “cute” – they are meant to do exactly what they say – shorten the URL so the that a visitor can include a message if they desire.

My main point is this – just because a blogger doesn’t post to twitter much (as you mentioned), that doesn’t mean that their readers do not. Most of the suggestions I posted above have to do with making the experience of reading a blog/sharing blog content more convenient for someone visiting a blog. That includes making my posts easy to share on social networks like twitter. And honestly, if a reader is sharing my content on twitter, I want to know. Heck, it drives me crazy that I can’t tell who is sharing my content on Facebook because I would love to be able to thank the person for doing so!

Regarding attribution, I agree, though I do find that at times its difficult to find an original source when something has been shared a countless number of times. I know I do my best, but sometimes I miss something here and there!

Another pet peeve. No source identification. And it drives me crazy when I see a source identified as being from Tumblr or Pinterest. Those aren’t sources! That what google image search is for. Loved your article and everyone should read it. I’m often at my laptop and some music starts playing and I can’t get my mute button to work!

Great lists, I’m trying to improve my blog. Though, I do use blogger and have no idea what to do about the captcha’s. And I did have a twitter, but recently deleted it. I get it may help some people promote their blogs, but it didn’t help me.. at all. I do have a tumblr though(:

Your are actually right. People nowadays are choosy in terms of reading articles. Of course we don’t want to read those ugly sites having irrelevant post. I must say that all the things here are definitely correct. I do hope that other people would learn something about this one.

Some blogs load slow because the database server is slow. WordPress does not cache sites, so there are DB requests with each page load. In this case it helps to change to a better web host or setting the blog up under MODx.

I have to agree with all of the above, especially not being able to find any comment boxes or sharing buttons. Or, worst of all, when I take the time to comment or sign-up for email and have to go through a series of pop-ups and login pages that don’t succeed in posting my comment to signing me up.

I especially appreciate your comments about Twitter. I’m a blogger at heart, not much of a tweeter, though I did set up a Twitter account and set up my blog to auto-tweet my new entries. I’m happy to read that though I don’t get much out of it myself, other people still might and even if 90% of my tweets are my blog entries that’s still adding potential value to someone.

Ooh now I’m so embarrassed: I WANT you to share my content but I don’t have that feature on my posts! I have been inadvertently rude. Soon as I submit this comment I’m going to go to one of those links and try to sort it out. I hope Blogger will let me!

Totally agree with all of the above, btw. Thank you: great post, sorry I’m about six weeks late to get to it but better late than never. Have a lovely weekend Beautiful! ; ) x

This is a great post. I have to sadly admit, I’m not on Twitter. I don’t see it as being necessary for me right now. That said, I will probably join if my blog begins to grow. I think it can definitely be useful for other bloggers, so I see the benefit. I’m actually going over the rest of my blog now to see what I should change! Thanks for the tips 😛

Great post! I agree with everything. I love Twitter and think it’s a great tool for bloggers so I don’t get why they wouldn’t want to use it 🙂 It’s a great piece of advice of bloggers: make your site AS EASY to browse as possible.

Can we also add the “click through to read the rest of this post” buttons? I HATE that. I don’t want to click ANOTHER button to read what you wrote, then click the back button in my browser to go back to where I started. AND–inevidably clicking the back button will leave me at the top of your page rather than back where I clicked to continue reading. Irritating. Even more so when it comes up in google reader.

I loved this post, been reading a few of these lately and its so interesting and valid, nodding my head as I read. Haven’t come across the imbedded music yet but yes that would be annoying. Captcha is a pain and as I use google reader on my iPhone I hate when there is not well paragraphed or bulleted posts, they look awful on your phone. I also hate when I cant find the follow me button for google reader……..

Also sites that are too busy hurt my eyes and I generally don’t like reading on a dark background, paler is better IMO.

I love this post! Oh, how I want to help some people and give their blogs facelifts. I agree with everything here,and one of my other pet peeves is checking out a blog and seeing a header with a header that is merely a photo taking up a small percentage of the header space with blogger default header link text splashed across the middle. It had to be said!

I’v been looking over the “ten words to stop misspelling” and i always thought it was I before E, except after C…………
never trust a teacher!
Does that mean weird is actually spelled wrong ? LOL………
wierd/ weird ???

This was really helpful, thanks! I’ve been playing with my sharing buttons/site layout a lot since my new blog just went up a couple of weeks ago & I’m trying to get it just right. I changed a couple of things (such as caching! hallelujah!) after reading this. Thanks for taking the time to explain the how & why, I’m sure you’ve made the blogosphere somewhat of a better place 😉

Great post! Really brave of you:) and so great that all bloggers can read it, make conclusions and amendments. To add to your list – a lot of ads on someone blog can be quite annoying… I want to read the post but not to get blind because of all these sparkling ads. Auto-play music is the next major annoyance. I just leave such blogs in a sec. No time for searching how to turn their music off… So thanks again for sharing darling! Hope it will help to improve the blogosphere 🙂 xox

Absolutely great article, and I totally agree with all of your points! I don’t have a social media sharing button, but only because I never figured out how to get one for Blogger. I’m going to look into it right now, though!

Hmm, what drives me crazy about your blog? I think the anonymity :P. I understand your reasons behind it, but I’m a very visual person and like to SEE the person behind the blog!

I find the frankness of your observations very refreshing. One thing that has really bothered me is this, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” If I am showing off an outfit to the whole world and there is something that someone sees that would improve my total look, I want to know about it. If my slip is showing please tell me.

Great post! I also hate it when bloggers don’t enable their RSS feeds to display the full content of their posts in blog readers. I almost never click out of my reader to see the rest of an abridged post. So annoying!

Hi there!
I just linked on via Sacramento and honestly, there are many blogger’s who don’t ‘tweet’, ( I just started last week ).
There are so many new blogs are out there, and not all are tech savvy, nor can they win a spelling bee, but with that said, they still have a terrific blog.
If I stumble upon them, I do the “old fashioned” thing and follow them via blogger,etc.
I get annoyed by the Captcha as well, but I choose to think with a kind mind and realize that not everyone knows it’s even there!
The kind-hearted blogger pledge is a great “blog bible” to refer to sometimes.
I usually don’t comment on this type of blog post, and it is a good guide-line for new bloggers.

This is a good, scared shitless guide-line for new bloggers 😉
Hope you have a terrific weekend!

I am with you on all of these, with one more: content available only by video. I do not care about your video. I do not want to watch your video. I can read what you have to say five times faster, and I read A LOT of content on the web, and don’t have time for your video.

I can see using video for certain tutorials, but even then, I would generally rather read them, with well-done infographics or illustrations if necessary, which I can then go to immediately (should I wish to follow said tutorial) without having to figure out whether the bit that I need is at 1:06 or 2:39. Video for posts and editorial is nothing more than a supreme annoyance, and I will click away.

I agree with you on this, not just because it takes time but because I’m deaf. So if someone posts a video, I can’t watch it unless it has subtitles! So its a huge annoyance for me and other deaf people.

Ha, absolutely love this post and so true about the music; argh! Total pet peeve and there’s a few sites I like but can only read them in Reader bc otherwise that damn music starts up. Ha. Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. And, these others are so spot on, too. Great way to start my Friday. Thanks!

I was sure I had commented on this post already, but I scrolled down through the comments and didn’t see anything written by me, so Ill just say that PHEW I am not committing any of these sins and congrats on making the Links a la Mode this week!! 🙂

I am guilty of the lack of a published Twitter handle on my blog. Several times, I have tried to install this on my blogger.com blog and every time I try, it tells me that that particular widget is currently not working…

Excellent post! I am w/ you on the spelling issue, I particularly hate it when I see “sneak peak”. I think my alter ego must be an evil grade school teacher. Next thing you know I’ll be ruler rapping some knuckles.

– really cluttered pages where you want to send a private note to the blogger and can’t figure out how to

– blogs that don’t let you read the entire thing in google reader but instead tease you there then you have to open another tab to open the entry and read to read the rest of it there. A total waste of my time and completely and utterly annoying. If there is an easy solve I’ve missed it.

GREAT post! Humorous and informative and not at all mean. Loved it. I am definitely going to investigate what my sharing button options are and how easy they are for readers. I hadn’t ever focused on that before. And I have a dark background on my blog, and I’ve always wondered whether others find it annoying. I am thinking about doing a feedback “what do you like, what don’t you like” type of post soon so maybe I will ask specifically about the background.

I totally agree with you about commenting being at the top of a post. I dislike it. I have to really want to leave a comment to do it that way.

Good list. There are some things I hadn’t considered such as adding share buttons; I’ve added share functionalities to my RSS feed because I subscribe to blogs via Google Reader but hadn’t considered it for the actual blog posts. D’oh! It’s something for me to look into.

Poor spelling and grammar drive me crazy too. I’m a professional writer, and it pains me to see bloggers who call themselves writers click Publish without doing a final edit beforehand.

A great post on blogging, yes sir. Very insightful, and the second time I see today that of the annoying CAPTCHA, so again, it’s gone (did it before but I got SO much spam). But I need some sort of spam protection, and the one you suggest for blogger is not free, is there anything out there that would do the trick but that costs no money?

Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful comments! I will be responding to everyone individually this week, but I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your support and encouragement. I am humbled my little pet peeve rant was so well-received. Thank you!

Guess what? I got my comments to show up at the bottom of my posts! Yay, I’m officially ten for ten! (I actually added the comment link to the bottom and kept it at the top – I like having the number under the subject to give people an idea of its popularity, or lack thereof. I wish I could make the bottom font size bigger – ala Thesis – but that will take more time than I probably ought to spend.)

Anyway. You’re brilliant, you’re beautiful, this is brilliant and beautiful. And unsurprisingly, Tom Ford giving the finger is brilliant and beautiful, too!

I agree with everything. I do have to say that I make allowances for blog design, though. I try to judge on content alone and if I find a blog with content that interests me and a design that…well, doesn’t? Typically I’ll still read it. But I’m only one person; I still advocate minimal/clean design because not everyone will stick around to see if they like the content. And no design is worth losing potential readers, I think! I’m definitely a TweetMeme fan and it frustrates me when blogs don’t have it (and, I agree, have it customized with all the necessary info). If I had a glass of wine every time I had to do the manual Tweet routine…it wouldn’t be pretty.

How did I not notice this post before!? What a great list. I think we can all agree on these things! My problem is that I don’t know how to enable sharing buttons for Blogger… Must look into that! Fortunately, I usually tweet all of my posts and people can share them by RT-ing, but still.

OMG! I LOVE YOU!! Ok, done yelling, just got really excited for a minute. I admit, I just learned something new, (enabling url shortener for tweets – must look into) but you clearly elaborated why some blogs never get a second look from me. With the amount of blogs out there, I need a good experience for my brain, (content), my heart, (personality), my eyes, ears and, uh, yeah… that’s it. I could add mouth, because I will talk about you if I love your blog. Just ask my hubby, what at this point knows way more than he’s ever wanted to about my favorite blogs.
xo, fThe House in the Clouds

I’ve been visiting your blog for a while now and I never really comment. But today I just wanted to share how informative it is (was) for me. I’ve learned quit a lot and keep doing so. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge.

Very funny post (I mean that in a good way. You are a good writer) , educational as well! I’m going to check my blog for all the things you mentioned…… And, if I misspelled something it’s because I’m from Germany, so bare with me (and others who don’t have English as their native language)
What drives me crazy is when there is no information or credit posted, just leaves you with questions. Bad (non-functional) Lay-out and music is also very irritating in my opinion. Spam is always a bother.
Enfin, thank you for this post.
Mimihttp://mimiberlinblog.blogspot.com/

What drives me crazy? Sites with loads of ads that flash at you. Oh, and sites that have loud pop up ads (I recently came across one with a pop up of a Jersey-style guy booming “Yo, get this mobile phone deal now!”) OMG, hate that!

The misspelling chart is gold. Thanks.

My site is only a newborn – been up for just 2 months. I’m up for constructive criticism!!!
Andrea

My NUMBER ONE thing that will make me stop reading your blog is if you delete a completely legitimate, non-hateful comment. With that, I’m “one and done” within minutes of realizing that’s what happened. Why would I read your blog if you don’t care about what I have to say?

please, please, PLEASE submit to ifb! i feel like some of this stuff keeps getting repeated, but no one listens. some of them really are just pet-peeves, but most are legitimate logistical concerns to a reader (ie. auto-play, bad grammar, newsletter pop ups). i’m so glad you finally put them all in one place.

I’m with you on the music playing. Can’t stand websites that make any unasked for noise.

A peeve of mine is those bars at the bottom that are all the rage now. You’ve got one here, too. Not only do I find them annoying at the bottom of the page, they often have weird effects like making the text in the middle of the page get stuck so the article scrolls underneath it and makes the blog unreadable until I go down and turn the thing off.

Okay. I have the post that I am going to nominate for my first ever Link Love. (er… when and where do I do that??)

I think I’m doing fairly well going by your points… although…gulp… I’m not a Tweeter… and I love how you very sweetly and politely tried to tell me to get on the tweeting bandwagon when telling me about the Link Love post!! Thank you hon! I will take that on board, for at least sharing my posts… sigh… I do use facebook a lot but not really to share my posts, mainly for my business and I only share my posts when they are linked to my businesses, eg. my jewellery.

I also don’t do the sharing thing because I simply didn’t think anyone would bother doing that!

I get very annoyed at slow loading pages due to high res images. I’m also getting annoyed at those facebook linked blogs with those link pics [and eeek! some of my faves do this 🙁 ] …and… all these sharing features that [oh don’t hate me] you have at the bottom here makes me feel a bit… pressured. Inundated?
This is the first time I have articulated the thought. To myself even and if the question hadn’t been posed I wouldn’t have addressed it. Please do feel free to rip my blog to shreds but before you do, could you ‘claim’ your Stylish Blogger Award??? 😀

This is fast becoming a dealbreaker… “your” used in place of “you’re”. At first it annoyed and now, I loathe.

I love this B! You have everything out on the table, and certainly what most if not all of us are thinking… Like I said before auto play music is not good, esp. when there isn’t an off switch ( I experienced that one recently visiting a non-fashion blog)
You touched on excellent points. I am always wary of a “blogger” who does not want you to know their website… I & for persons not on at least one of these (Facebook or Twitter), then shame on them! LOL 🙂

Fabulous points here B- some great advice for new bloggers. I think I’m doing pretty ok as far as these go- no music, no captcha, no newsletter popups, my comments are at the bottom (when they’re working, sadly they sometimes don’t- working on that…. ) , white background, and dark text… I had to check.. but I do have share buttons that plug in all but my twitter handle. and I have a twitter. YAY. Now I need to work on load time. I’m guilty of hitting publish with major grammar mistakes but I usually catch em in a few hours and fix them/ become so embarrassed! Thanks for the reminder! And thank you for putting this nicely- I’ve seen so many unconstuctive why I hate your blog posts recently!

This is SO a must read for every blogger. As soon as I read the first one I was literally hooked. I can’t even explain how much it irritates me when people use auto-play for their music on their blog. I don’t get it.

A couple of months ago we removed the word verification for posting on SHE. It’s less work for the readers and so far there hasn’t really been any spam! We also just recently added a re-tweet button at the bottom of the posts. I’d like to add more options but we might have to wait until the Blogger make-over. Unless you know of something that would work?

I actually would love to see a post with a little more info about post sharing. I have the buttons but I need something compatible with blogger. This was a great post though I have always tried to make my site clean, and easy to navigate. My Heart Blogged

Thank you for speaking out against the Newsletter Pop-up. I particularly HATE that. I also hate when I have to click “read more” or “read full-post.” I understand you get more feed traffic that way, but I’m there to read the post and I don’t want to click on it to read more!

Really great post! Recently I found a new blog that I was trying to read when suddenly all this music started. I didn’t even bother to try and turn it off I just left asap. Music is so personal. If I want to listen to music I go to Pandora, if I want to look at clothes I go to blogs.

The comment thing is a bit difficult for me. I can’t seem to find a theme that makes it really easy to comment. All of them require that you be on the post, rather than the home page, to comment. I know there’s a comment link on the top of my posts, but I can’t figure out how to make one on the bottom too. Hate that.

And oh the no share buttons is SO irritating. There are so many times I want to share something and I can’t. It just irks.

Although it doesn’t irritate me, I do wish more people would enable commentluv on their blogs. It just seems like a nice thing to do for the people who are taking the time to comment. Gives them a little back you know?

Terrific post, thank you! Absolutely agree with the auto-playing music…especially bad when I’ve been browsing with my sound off, turn on my sound for something else, and then have to figure out which of my tabs has music going. Terribly annoying.

And you finally convinced me to add some sharing buttons to my posts. I”d been a bit uncomfortable doing that, worrying that it might come off as self-centered (“Here! Look, you want to share my content, don’t you? Of course you do! Because my content is so good!”), but hadn’t thought that it could be annoying to readers not to give them easy opportunities to share something they liked.

I totally agree with every 10 things you listed here. Especially the first two and last. I hate it when people have music that automatically pops up on their site. It annoys me! And I hate waiting for a site, any site to load…lol

First time at your blog, and this is an AWESOME article. I have all these pet peeves, too, but it’s hard to say so without offending specific people, right?

Okay, so I’m guilty of removing my twitter share buttons because I don’t think that anyone would ever want to SHARE my stuff over twitter. maybe that was wrong of me and I should add it back. I just hate how cluttered it makes my blog, especially when there’s like a million and a half ways to share a post, and all those darn buttons are kind of ugly.

One of my pet peeves: when people post at the bottom of EVERY SINGLE POST: Follow me on twitter! Follow me on lookbook.nu! Like me on Facebook! Friend me on chictopia! You know, if you had those in the sidebar, I’d probably find them and do it, but since you’re being so annoyingly pushy about it, I’m not going to.

I literally JUST tweeted about how I visited a site with auto-play music and was so startled by it that I spilled my coffee. Wont be visiting that blog again which is unfortunate because the few images I saw prior to exiting the page looked nice. Oh well.

These are great pointers. I’m a Blogger blogger so a lot of the WP plug-ins dont apply to my platform but I’ll be looking for ways to improve my site based on your tips.

All so very true!! For me music is the absolute worst. I immediately close the page whenever I hear something play (after I jumped in the air because I didn’t expect music to play and of course my volume was on way too loud).

I agree with twitter- I just got on it and I am a lame sauce for not being on it before. When I’m leaving comments now I’m asking where is your twitter?! I want it! I tend to comment stalk, twittering is a much better way for me to do that.

Thank you for the sharing info…I didn’t know it! I’m going to go learn it now.

So I should have known if there’s a subject that’s been kicking around in my head that you or Vahni would write a most excellent post about it. EXCELLENT. post. I’m going to link it to everything and everyone I know. When I finally make my blogger 101 blogroll, this is sooooo going on the top of the page. Sigh. GREAT, GREAT post. I promptly nominate it for Link Love.

Agreed! AGREED! AGREED! I wish they handed this out in the new blogger handbook. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by straight up telling them these things, but it’s so true. I can deal with a lot of these if need be, but if you’re auto-playing music or have a newsletter subscribe pop-up, you can almost guarantee I’m clicking away.

The autoplay one has to be one of THE WORST! Yes, I read blogs at work and I don’t need music blaring! And it’s really distracting too! That was sooo MySpace! LOL Tuje dark background with light text comes in second for me and its crazy because I was guilty of that in the verry beginning!

Um, please tell me that the Cee-Low situation was hypothetical!! Right?? That’s not cool AT ALL!

Pop-ups absolutely kill me. And so does not having any share buttons. I wanted to share a really awesome post earlier this week, but NO SHARE BUTTONS! All the content I saw on the page was awesome, and I could see that many others would have wanted to share it. I really couldn’t believe it.

And last week I went to a blog where the spelling was all over the place. It was so bad that I didn’t make it through the post. I almost wanted to email the person, but I couldn’t think of a polite way to express my concerns.

Thanks for this! I’m considering cutting my header down a bit!! 🙂

We live and learn, but I’ll be sharing this post because it ROCKS!! And he Tom Ford photo made me laugh! 🙂

Oh! Thanks to Ashe, I foudn your blog and fell in love with you! You hit the nail on the head with each one of these! I adore you! I am going to check out the revisions plug in- THANK YOU! I already play with Super Cache- I completely agree with your automusic. I despise it! LOL !
Thank you again for such an amazing post!

Ah! Thanks for the GASP plugin– I hate using captcha, BUT… I have Akismet AND Bad Behavior running, and sometimes with them I’m still getting a ton of spam each day… sometimes when the spam dies down I disable captcha… then re-enable when it gets crazy. I’ll try this though!

I agree with most of your points. However, personally, I am not interested yet in Twitter, nor do I have time to monitor and maintain another account — providing my own content, and keeping up with others’. I’m busy with Livejournal, Facebook, and Cloud of Secrets. I publish links to my posts to a personal circles on Facebook and Livejournal, and I find plenty of new friends and visitors by commenting actively on other blogs I like.

I think you’ve run into frustration at my Twitterlessness before. It is my considered (and reconsidered) decision to refrain for now, though.

On your blog and others, I’ve run into the Wibiya footer bars with buttons and links that automatically fling up little (sometimes big) windows when my mouse accidentally strays over them — when I’m trying to find the comment link, for instance. And I don’t like it. I guess that’s the only plaint I have about Beautifully Invisible!

All that said, after reading about it in your post, I did find a nonobnoxious Sociable widget via blogger, and have installed it in my sidebar, including a Twitter button. My posts have had Twitter sharing at the bottom for months. So, I think it’s possible for others to share with that method if they choose.

Ahh B!! Nail on the head – you hit it! These also drive me crazy. The worst thing is new bloggers who don’t read these types of posts or don’t heed them. I haven’t been out here long but I always read these posts and hope I am not committing the blogger sins.
BTW – I adore the images you have chosen. Great stuff!

oh! that’s a great post!!!
I enjoyed the twitter part because you spoke directly to my mind!!!
I have a twitter button and I personally tweet all my posts from there…so it does short them directly, but my question is…how do I add my twitter handle so that in the case that someone tweets my post my twitter handle is added??
Do I have to add the tweetmeme to solve this issue??

as for my pet peeves…hmmm I’m an easygoing person…CAPTCHA doesn’t annoy me that much (it’s more annoying for me that I have to be logged on in wordpress (my platform) to be able to comment…
autoplay music I will agree…it annoys me on all sites!!!!
another pet peeve is a post with tons of “imspirational” photos where you scroll, scroll, scroll…and in the end get annoyed!!!!

Yes, I have the same question as Anna- I would love to know how to add my twitter handle automatically in case anyone retweets on of my posts! You have so much great advice here and I think that thankfully my blog is not offending in any of these ways! =)

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